He played worse as his protection, the running backs and receiving options got injured. Anyone that just reduces this down to his injury ignores that everything around him got dinged up pretty bad as well.

He played worse as his protection, the running backs and receiving options got injured. Anyone that just reduces this down to his injury ignores that everything around him got dinged up pretty bad as well.

wasnt he something like 0/12 in the Miami game which would more support the idea he had one bad game when Gronk was out, hogan was playing hurt and none of his receivers could get open over the idea it’s a 6 game trend?

He played worse as his protection, the running backs and receiving options got injured. Anyone that just reduces this down to his injury ignores that everything around him got dinged up pretty bad as well.

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To be honest I haven't dug into anything over the last few weeks. I've been working straight out. So whatever I say is just based off of a quick glance.

But I do think Brady was injured and it had an affect on his performance initially but he does look better over the last couple of Sundays.

Edelman's loss had a big impact, both overall and in terms of depth for critical down play.

As the team around him disintegrated, Brady's numbers took a hit.

When you change from a shorter yardage passing team to a more downfield passing team, your efficiency numbers take a hit.

Brady should petition the NFL to always have the Patriots/Dolphins game in Florida played on the last week of the year.

If people take the idea of injury out of the equation, and just follow the progression of:

Edelman gone and Solder struggling early (messes with early games)

Team adjusts to loss of Edelman (better play after early games) by making Hogan more of an Edelman substitute, and Solder improves, and team plays much better

Hogan goes down in week 8 (One of the 2 remaining real quick twitch 3rd down receivers is lost)

Cannon is also lost at that time, with the O-line becoming more vulnerable as a result

Burkhead becomes a bigger part of the offense (Targets: 7/3/6/2/4/5/1), becomes less effective as he gets banged up, and ends up on the shelf, thus robbing Brady of his Hogan substitute. So Brady is now down to the substitute for the substitute for the substitute.

Thuney starts to get beaten more consistently, whether due to injury or just bad play

Gronk gets a one game suspension, just in time for the Dolphins game

White is lost for a couple of games, thus robbing Brady of his 3dRB after he'd already lost his Swiss Army RB

Gillislee goes down, leaving only Lewis out of the RB stable, and forcing Bolden into service

The remaining receivers have multiple brain farts during the last game of the year

and combine that with the usual expectation of Brady's (almost) annual clunker game, we get a perfectly logical basis for the hit to Brady's numbers, above and beyond any issue with Brady himself.

To be honest I haven't dug into anything over the last few weeks. I've been working straight out. So whatever I say is just based off of a quick glance.

But I do think Brady was injured and it had an affect on his performance initially but he does look better over the last couple of Sundays.

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Deus put it well.. there are just so many more injuries and constant roster changes around our QB that it is pointless to talk about an injury being the reason for having worse numbers especially because that injury made him miss only 3-4 practices in total.

Edelman's loss had a big impact, both overall and in terms of depth for critical down play.

As the team around him disintegrated, Brady's numbers took a hit.

When you change from a shorter yardage passing team to a more downfield passing team, your efficiency numbers take a hit.

Brady should petition the NFL to always have the Patriots/Dolphins game in Florida played on the last week of the year.

If people take the idea of injury out of the equation, and just follow the progression of:

Edelman gone and Solder struggling early (messes with early games)

Team adjusts to loss of Edelman (better play after early games) by making Hogan more of an Edelman substitute, and Solder improves, and team plays much better

Hogan goes down in week 8 (One of the 2 remaining real quick twitch 3rd down receivers is lost)

Cannon is also lost at that time, with the O-line becoming more vulnerable as a result

Burkhead becomes a bigger part of the offense (Targets: 7/3/6/2/4/5/1), becomes less effective as he gets banged up, and ends up on the shelf, thus robbing Brady of his Hogan substitute. So Brady is now down to the substitute for the substitute for the substitute.

Thuney starts to get beaten more consistently, whether due to injury or just bad play

Gronk gets a one game suspension, just in time for the Dolphins game

White is lost for a couple of games, thus robbing Brady of his 3dRB after he'd already lost his Swiss Army RB

Gillislee goes down, leaving only Lewis out of the RB stable, and forcing Bolden into service

The remaining receivers have multiple brain farts during the last game of the year

and combine that with the usual expectation of Brady's (almost) annual clunker game, we get a perfectly logical basis for the hit to Brady's numbers, above and beyond any issue with Brady himself.

but he didnt look as sharp as the year went on........looked great early on...

but despite losing edelman and others.....it helps that the GOAT TE was there in gronk.......and also dion lewis has played out of his mind as the season went on......been one of the best weapons in the league the last few weeks

As are the stats from before and after Hogan became unavailable (during week-8).

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Very true. That was one of the first things that I noticed, particularly on 3rd down where it seems as though he had more targets than I had realized.

There may be signs of a drop off due to injury though, or at least that being a factor, of course. As much as Hogan is missed, there was a significant change over the past 5 games in terms of downfield throws of 20 yds or longer.

When examining downfield throwing issues, In the first 11 contests, Brady had a QBR of around 112-113, but that dipped to below 30 from weeks 13-17. Again, there are other factors that come into play of course, but that stat leads me to believe that he may be/have been playing through some type of ailment which affected his throwing mechanism, and that was highlighted more on longer throws of 20 yds or more.

Of course, missing Gronk for a game, having the annual ****fest in Miami, and having a freezing cold game in week 17 likely played a role, as well. The Hogan injury that you mentioned, and some OL struggles certainly contributed, but I believe that he still did quite well for 3 more games after Hogan was out (downfield throwing) which is why it stuck out to me through weeks 13-17.

Very true. That was one of the first things that I noticed, particularly on 3rd down where it seems as though he had more targets than I had realized.

There may be signs of a drop off due to injury though, or at least that being a factor, of course. As much as Hogan is missed, there was a significant change over the past 5 games in terms of downfield throws of 20 yds or longer.

When examining downfield throwing issues, In the first 11 contests, Brady had a QBR of around 112-113, but that dipped to below 30 from weeks 13-17. Again, there are other factors that come into play of course, but that stat leads me to believe that he may be/have been playing through some type of ailment which affected his throwing mechanism, and that was highlighted more on longer throws of 20 yds or more.

Of course, missing Gronk for a game, having the annual ****fest in Miami, and having a freezing cold game in week 17 likely played a role, as well. The Hogan injury that you mentioned, and some OL struggles certainly contributed, but I believe that he still did quite well for 3 more games after Hogan was out (downfield throwing) which is why it stuck out to me through weeks 13-17.

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Just to further clarify, I went back and found the stat that I was referring to:

I might be hijacking the thread here a little bit but since it is literally a Brady stat and was posted by the PatsFans twitter account I hope its fine.

Did Cooks really go 7 out of 26 on third down targets this year ? Jesus, that is a crazy bad number. And I am pretty confident that the majority of those were not deep low percentage throws.

If you wanted an area to improve upon until next year.. there you have it..

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No doubt. I’m hoping that another offseason and year in our system will allow them to utilize him in a more effective manner.

While he’s a great downfield threat, I think too many see him as “just” that. They will certainly want him to take on more responsibilities. He should be a more complete receiver and increasing his effectiveness as a possession receiver is necessary. He needs more Branch and even Lloyd in his game, which may sound odd to some, but they need that kind of chemistry with back shoulder throws and key third down grabs. On top of that, I still think that Belichick wants to see him on more midfield crossers in order to take an 8 yard catch and turn it into 25 yards. He ranted about guys like Wallace having that ability, and I don’t think we saw enough of that as the year progressed.

Combine those skills with what he already has shown, and now you can make an actual case for a 14-15m dollar a year deal. Until he adds more to his arsenal, I have a hard time seeing more than 11-12m.

Very true. That was one of the first things that I noticed, particularly on 3rd down where it seems as though he had more targets than I had realized.

There may be signs of a drop off due to injury though, or at least that being a factor, of course. As much as Hogan is missed, there was a significant change over the past 5 games in terms of downfield throws of 20 yds or longer.

When examining downfield throwing issues, In the first 11 contests, Brady had a QBR of around 112-113, but that dipped to below 30 from weeks 13-17. Again, there are other factors that come into play of course, but that stat leads me to believe that he may be/have been playing through some type of ailment which affected his throwing mechanism, and that was highlighted more on longer throws of 20 yds or more.

Of course, missing Gronk for a game, having the annual ****fest in Miami, and having a freezing cold game in week 17 likely played a role, as well. The Hogan injury that you mentioned, and some OL struggles certainly contributed, but I believe that he still did quite well for 3 more games after Hogan was out (downfield throwing) which is why it stuck out to me through weeks 13-17.

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Missing key offensive weapons to injury/suspension, certain parts of the playbook become pretty much useless and other plays don't quite work the same way. The offense becomes a bit more vanilla than usual. This creates vulnerabilities that opposing defenses can identify and attack with coverage and pressure schemes that might not otherwise have worked quite as well. Every little execution error by an offensive player becomes magnified because there are fewer ways to recover a given play from an error.

All of this affects Brady's reads and throws, and Brady being dinged-up exacerbates the situation and any resulting inaccuracies become more prominent, both visibly and statistically.

With a completely healthy offense including Edelman, Mitchell, Hogan, Burkhead, Gronk, Cannon, etc., Brady's reduced accuracy on certain types of throws just wouldn't seem as big a deal, and the reaction to the effect of Brady's injuries on his own accuracy would likely have been less "OMG!" and more "Meh. He'll get over it."

If some or all of Hogan, Mitchell, Burkhead and White are available for the Divisional round and/or Dorsett/Britt can reduce their errors, whatever effects of Brady's injuries may linger simply may not show up as dramatically on the field or in the stats.